New to robotics...feel lost, useless, and robotics career question

[SirLancelot]

I agree with all of the above--pick a field and you may learn to love it!!

There's never a shortage of things to do, and not all of them are obscure. You could learn the 'C' programming language (I suggest the tutorials at cplus.about.com, by the way), you could teach yourself Inventor, or you could simply find a mentor and aquaint yourself with some of the power tools and become one of the team's machinists.
If your team hasn't already done so, you may wish to consider sketching out your robot idea for this season and delegating each person to a specific aspect of it based on personal interest. That way, each person will have a job that they'll (hopefully) enjoy, and they'll learn a lot about it in the process.
1502 was a rookie team last year, and I'm know well the feeling of being useless. I just decided to teach myself Inventor, and after that, the bad feelings were gone. I know that I'm needed for something that no one else on our team is yet capable of doing. If you find a purpose for being there, FIRST is a blast. Everything will get better!!

best of luck to you and your team!
~Anna